


Nice Boys Don't Kiss Like That (But Nice is Different Than Good)

by youshallnotfinditso



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Car Sex, Compulsory Heterosexuality, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Toxic Behavior, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Friendship, Unhealthy Relationships, Unhealthy Sex, Unsafe driving, horrible rich people making horrible decisions, sex as an act of self hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:08:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29278245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youshallnotfinditso/pseuds/youshallnotfinditso
Summary: If Cameron were a different sort of boy, his preoccupation with his best friend’s former girlfriend would’ve been easy to explain. He was a competitive person. He didn't do things by halves. And he'd always been good at getting girls to like him.He had to be, because it made up for the next part, which he simply could not do at all.(Or, some people sleep with their crush's ex, to cope).
Relationships: Cameron Winklevoss/KC (The Social Network), Divya Narendra/Cameron Winklevoss, Divya Narendra/KC (The Social Network)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19
Collections: The Prompt Network





	Nice Boys Don't Kiss Like That (But Nice is Different Than Good)

**Author's Note:**

> not intended to condone or endorse the behavior of any of the terrible men portrayed by or involved in the making of this movie

KC had her hair up, twisted neatly into the kind of updo that had clearly taken a lot of time and a fair amount of effort. Cameron could appreciate that, the same way he appreciated that her glittering bronze eyeshadow was the same shade as her jewelry, making her blue eyes stand out and calling attention to the fact that they were nearly the same color as her dress.

He let his eyes slide over her form with appreciation. She was beautiful. He couldn’t deny that.

He was not attracted to her.

If he were a different sort of boy, his preoccupation with his best friend’s former girlfriend would’ve been easy to explain. Cameron was a competitive person. He didn’t do things by halves. Having a girl around all the time, who he was expected to make nice to and charm without winning over, was a strange game when he knew what the usual next steps were, knew that it would be easy to hold eye contact just a second too long, sit just a bit too close, and have her melting in his arms.

He’d always been good at that — making girls like him. He had to be, because it made up for the next part, which he simply could not do at all.

It was only a matter of time before KC noticed him, the house party small enough that someone his size could never have blended in well, and he watched her train of thought play across her face like translator’s notes. The twins were here, was Divya here? No, and wait, was _Tyler_ even here? No. Weird. _Weird_.

She cocked her head at him. Beckoned him over. If he’d realized she would be here tonight he wouldn’t have come at all, but he walked over anyway.

“It’s weird to see you out by yourself,” she said, half shouting over the music reverberating throughout the townhouse ( _no money man could win my love, it’s sweetness that I’m thinking of_ ). “I’m so used to seeing you three together. You guys are like the Heathers. Or like, Jawbreaker.”

“Are those movies? Or bands?” Cam asked, a little more helplessly than he really felt. People always responded better to him not understanding their references if he played up how embarrassing it was. Otherwise they tightened up, defensive, like he’d said out loud that he thought he was better than them. He didn’t have time to keep up with pop culture. He was training for the Olympics. That wasn’t their fault, but it wasn’t his fault either.

She took a self-conscious sip of her drink. Water, Cameron noticed.

“Movies, sorry, I forgot how you guys don’t have a life outside of crew. I’m actually pretty shocked to see you at a party.”

“Every once in a while I try to live while I can,” he said, holding up his beer. 

“Is that Natty _Lite?!_ ” KC teased, smacking him with the back of her hand. She’d always been playful like that with Divya, pushing to be pushed back, their back-and-forth playing rapidly in the background as Cam and Tyler tried to make small talk with her friends whenever they managed to squeeze in the time for a group outing.

“I’ll take it that’s a bad thing,” Cameron said, easygoing and acquiescent. “I don’t really know anything about looking good at these kinds of parties.”

KC shook her head like she knew that was a line, but she was smiling despite herself. “I guess I just expected your taste to be more refined.”

Cameron leaned in without even deciding whether that was something he wanted, whether that was going to take him somewhere he couldn’t come back from. He wasn’t thinking about what KC was thinking, how she saw him, what she might have wanted from him. He just knew there was a designated script for talking to girls at parties. There was a choreography he was familiar with that he could safely follow along.

“My taste isn’t as refined as I like people to think,” he said, one hand coming to rest gently against her arm. “But let’s keep that between us.”

KC shivered, a blush coming up the sides of her neck.

She looked so beautiful. He wished he wanted her.

“I’ll do you one better,” she said, taking the beer out of his hand and placing it on the counter behind her. “Do you dance?”

“Oh, I try not to,” Cam said, laughing as she took both his hands in hers.

“Okay, well fortunately for you, all the guy ever has to do is stand there and let the girl make him look good. So if that sounds like something you can handle … ”

“I do like to look good,” Cameron surrendered, and let her lead him out to the floor.

“You didn’t drive here, did you?” KC asked, eyes bright and face flushed. He wanted to tell her exactly what she wanted to hear. 

Fortunately, he could.

“I did, as a matter of fact,” he said agreeably, pulling his car keys out of his pocket and dangling them in front of her nose.

She swiped for them, so he held them up higher, swapped them to his other hand, held them out of reach before she feinted left, so obvious he could’ve seen it coming a mile away, but he let her win, let her seize them from him. 

“You were drinking, let me drive you home.”

“I had two beers. Caffeinated soda would have more of an effect on me.”

“Buzzed driving is one thing,” she said, shaking her head. “Buzzed driving when it’s storming is a whole other world, Cameron Winklevoss.” 

God, she sounded like Div.

“I couldn’t ask you to inconvenience yourself like that,” Cameron said, but even he could tell his resolve was cracking.

“At least let me call you a cab,” she offered, and started taking her phone out like it wasn’t raining.

“No, no, I’ll let you drive,” he said, halting her in action. Besides, he didn’t want to have to walk back out here to get the car tomorrow. Tyler would never let him live it down.

KC took her heels off to drive, which struck Cameron as very down-to-earth. It made him wonder again about the kinds of things Divya had liked about her. 

No one had ever accused Cameron of being down-to-earth before. No, he was always larger than life, always someone’s spectacle. Divya was one of the only people who ever seemed to want the human side behind the athletic prodigy, but even he appreciated the benefits of Cam and Tyler’s status a lot more than he let on.

It was still raining when KC parked, and for a moment they simply waited in silence. Waiting for the rain to stop, for the residual heat from the heater to dissipate, for the inside of the SUV to stop seeming like a comfortable haven.

“You know something?” KC said, turning to Cam. “I’m glad you were there tonight. I always kind of thought you didn’t like me.”

“Of course I liked you,” Cameron reassured hastily. 

KC gave him an odd look.

All right, so that wasn’t exactly true. But it hadn’t been personal. It had just been that— that ever since Divya had been assigned to a group project with the twins in a freshman Number Theory class and introduced himself by saying “If you guys leave me out in the cold because I’m the odd guy out, I’m sabotaging this whole operation,” Cam had been head over heels for him. 

The fact that Divya was determined not just to be friends with the twins, but to spend time with and get to know each of them separately, did not help matters. Divya knew what Cam’s favorite cheat day meals were, could tell when he was upset about something and trying to hide it. Divya knew what music he liked and didn’t, what movies he was _actually_ embarrassed about not having seen and which ones he thought just sounded stupid. He could tell when Cam wanted to be argued with and when he wanted to be left alone to lick his wounds.

And Divya had no idea that Cameron was in love with him. Had no idea that Cameron was sitting alone in a car with his ex-girlfriend, after letting her grind against him and sit in his lap in a room full of sweating bodies and drunken, excitable atmosphere. 

Cameron wasn’t sure which of those things Divya would react worse to.

“I apologize if it seemed like I didn’t,” Cam amended. “I suppose I could tell that … that things weren’t ideal.” His ninth grade WACT teacher’s voice rattled through the back of his mind, reminding him to back up his arguments. “I know it was upsetting to you, how he handled the Valentine’s Day fiasco. And when he rescheduled on your anniversary.” 

It was also only memorable because Cameron had felt such a surge of elation to hear about it, to hear that KC had not been pleased.

“You can say that again,” KC murmured darkly. 

“I hope that you’re happier now,” Cameron said, and meant it. _I hope that you find someone else_ , he thought, _I hope he keeps you far away_.

KC leaned over the gearshift and kissed him.

There had been an occasion, several months ago, when Cameron had stopped by Divya’s apartment for drinks while KC was over. After getting more intoxicated than had been his intent, Divya offered to let him stay the night. 

And he had, in Divya’s bed — the couch being far too small for someone of his size. Divya and KC, still awake on the couch, chatted and mock-argued while Cameron tried not to be overwhelmed by the smell of Divya’s sheets, the very idea of laying his body in the space Divya slept every night.

After what felt like hours, he’d heard, “The door is shut, right? He wouldn’t be able to hear anything?”

“I can’t tell from here, but … even when he’s not drunk, the guy sleeps like the dead.”

And then.

He hadn’t _tried_ to listen but there just wasn’t much he could do. His limbs felt too heavy to get up, and the mortification of walking out when they were clearly in the middle of—

When he could hear—

When Divya—

Cameron tried not to indulge in thinking about it, but there were times when it was simply unavoidable. He kissed KC back, and he knew exactly what Divya sounded like when someone did this to him.

KC closed her hand around his wrist and Cam thought about Divya, she crawled into his lap and Cam thought about Divya, ground down against him and his blood burned hot and behind his eyes all he could see was _Divya Divya Divya_.

“So,” KC said finally, breaking away, “forgive me if this is too far too fast, but your backseat folds down, right?”

Cameron loved to give people what they wanted.

They finally exited the warmth of the car, the brief interlude it took to shuffle from front to backseat in the storm utterly drenching them both. KC squealed when Cam shook his wet hair like a dog, and he almost felt like a nice boy with his nice date, standing on the brink of a milestone because he liked her. 

She shivered against him. 

“Let’s get you out of those wet things,” Cameron said, and she laughed.

She laughed at him when he said he kept condoms in his car but not his wallet, laughed when he couldn’t figure out the clasp of her bra. She probably wouldn’t have laughed if he’d told her he always had to wind things down at this point, with girls, because this was the part where they’d start to take notice of his body’s lack of interest.

“Divya didn’t have a lot of car sex with you?” Cam teased, and KC smacked his arm. Divya didn’t drive, it was something the twins were always heckling him about.

“Divya was not particularly adventurous,” KC said, low in his ear. Cam could hear the echo of what he’d sounded like that night on the couch. Felt it in his throat. “And I actually thought it was kind of sweet that he hadn’t really gotten around much, before we were together, but sometimes? It really showed.”

If Cameron’s inexperience with girls showed as well, it must not have been a dealbreaker.

KC held Cam’s face into her neck when he was inside her. She smelled too sweet, like a jello shot. He kissed her neck.

“You’re so fucking big,” she said around a gasp, and she hadn’t said that to Divya that night. He could remember everything they’d said, and she hadn’t said that.

Cam wondered if Divya could feel, could sense somehow, that this was happening. If he’d hate Cameron for it, or if he was simply frozen in place the way Cam had been that night, achingly hard and unable to move.

“C’mon, stay with me,” KC soothed, rolling her hips against him, her body hot and tight around him, and Cameron knew what he needed.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded.

“No one’s ever filled me up like this, I can feel you in the back of my fucking _throat_ ,” she said, digging her fingernails into his scalp, and he shuddered, but it wasn’t quite— wasn’t quite— .

“Talk to me about Div,” he whispered, eyes closed. She stilled for a moment. Cam’s thoughts floundered for a way to make it less obvious. There wasn’t really. He tried anyway. “About how I’m better than him.”

“He always got so passive,” she said slowly, a little guiltily. “It was like once things really got going, all he wanted was to lie there on his back and make me do the work.”

Cameron shuddered. He felt like he was leaving his body. 

KC had given him something, that image of Divya, but it was a hint too, and he could take a hint. 

He fucked her how she wanted, how she asked him to, and when he’d gotten her off she kissed him gently, like she felt sorry for him, and whispered in his ear about Divya, Divya, Divya.

They betrayed him together.

KC cried a little bit after, asked “Are we mean? Are we bad people?” and didn’t wait for Cameron to answer.

Cameron tried to insist on driving her home, but she refused, refused, they got to the point of near-argument and it went against everything in Cameron’s social training to argue with a crying girl. She got out of the car and he watched her until she disappeared, waited until the rain stopped.

He half-expected to see Divya on the couch in his dorm when he finally walked up, but no one was there.

Cameron and Tyler had given Divya the spare key to their dorm ages ago, but he still tended to call before he stopped by.

Coming back from crew in the morning to find him on their couch was new.

“Amir called me this morning,” Divya said, voice brittle like ice. He stood up, walked over to the twins. “Said he saw you doing something intriguing at a house party last night?”

Tyler bumped shoulders with Cam. “I knew it, I knew you were off at training this morning.”

Divya crossed his arms and looked to the side, like he expected KC to emerge from Cam’s room or something. 

Fuck. 

Fucking christ in hell, it had been coming over him in waves, the guilt over what he’d done, but the rest of it all poured over him at once in a torrential downpour. He’d done something he could never undo, and the fact that it had felt sleazy and wrong in the moment, that he hadn’t even enjoyed it all that much, did not make a single damned difference. 

He wasn’t the one who did things like this, he was the one who cleaned up other people’s messes.

Cameron wasn’t ready when Divya turned back and looked him in the eye. His expression was granite, but his voice was so, so small.

“So did you sleep with her?”

“Wait, did Cam _what?!_ ” Tyler snorted, not believing it, because Tyler always knew too much about Cameron’s business, even when Cameron had never invited him to look into it. “Who are we talking about here?”

“Answer the question, Cam,” Divya said, and Cam felt a flush crawl up his neck, choked on his words. Froze up because he couldn’t, he couldn’t answer.

But it was better this way, right? If Divya hated him just for this?

Tyler was looking at him strangely now, searching, suddenly urgent. “Cam?” he asked. “What the hell did you do, man?”

Neither of them were ready for it when Divya charged at Cam, grabbed him by the lapels of his coat, and slammed him back against the door. 

Cameron probably could have stopped it if he’d wanted to.

Probably.

“ _WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?_ ” Divya yelled, voice shaking. He was breathing so hard, and Cam wanted to reach out and lay a hand on his chest, feel how fast his heart was beating. “You could have your pick of _anyone_ , _any_ girl, you had to go after my _fucking ex?!_ ”

“Cameron, _what_ is he _talking about?!_ ”

“Were you lying in wait this whole time, making plans behind my back? Just— just tell me you waited until after she dumped me, _god_ fuck you, did she dump me for you?”

“It was just last night, and that was a _mistake_ ,” Cam grated out, and he couldn’t look at Tyler because he knew Tyler would be disgusted with him. 

He looked at Divya and let Divya hate him.

“I’m sorry,” Tyler said to Cameron’s side, “are you telling me you slept with _KC Tenenbaum??_ ”

“Am I really supposed to believe you didn’t know?” Divya hissed at Tyler, and Tyler crossed his arms. He was probably still glaring at Cameron.

“I’m right here with you, man, this is news to me too.” 

Divya hit Cam in the chest with the flat of his hand, shoved away from him, rubbed at his eyes. Cameron stayed frozen against the door. Tyler did nothing.

“I think, maybe, I should leave you two to sort out your differences,” Tyler finally said, carefully. “Div, don’t break his arms or anything, but ….. whatever else you come up with, he probably deserves it and I won’t hold it against you.”

Cameron finally looked at Tyler. Tyler didn’t look disgusted, but he did look upset.

That was somehow so much worse.

Tyler pushed Cameron away from the door so he could leave. The door slammed behind him.

“You have no idea how hard I work to be friends with you two,” Divya said after a long silence. “People barely even look at me like I’m a separate person, their eyes go right through me just to look at you. I am always fucking running to keep up with you and you don’t even know it.”

“I’m sorry,” Cameron said, his voice heavy. 

“No you’re not, you clearly fucking are not, because the second somebody looked at me first, the second I had something for myself, you had to take it from me.”

“That’s not why,” Cameron said before he could think better of it. “You have to know that wasn’t why.”

“You wanna fucking _enlighten me_ then?” Divya said, spreading his arms wide.

“I never liked her, when she was dating you,” Cameron said slowly. He felt like he was prying shrapnel out of his heart. “I never really liked girls at all, didn’t you ever notice that?”

He’d never said that out loud to someone before. Even when he’d slept with other guys, they hadn’t talked about it.

“I don’t think I follow,” Divya said slowly.

“I wasn’t jealous of you because you were dating KC. I was jealous, but I wasn’t jealous of you.”

Divya didn’t say anything. His face didn’t change. God, he was going to make Cam say it. 

“I slept with her because she was talking about you, and that was the only thing that’s ever made me interested in sleeping with a girl before.”

Divya laughed, raked a hand through his hair. His eyes were wild. He laughed again and it sounded like a sob.

“You can’t fucking tell me that right after stabbing me in the back, man, you can’t tell me that you— ”

“Love you?”

“ _Fuck_ you,” Divya spat. He looked angry. He looked absolutely fucking destroyed.

It was all Cam’s fault.

“I know, I know it’s inconvenient, no one knows that more than me,” Cam said hastily, reassuring him. “But now you have an out, you have a real reason to stay away from me and no one will blame you. Not even Tyler.”

“You are fucking _insane!_ ” Divya yelled. “Do you even hear yourself? Did it ever occur to you to just talk to me?”

“I couldn’t put you in that position— ”

“You never even thought about whether or not I would want that!” Divya shouted, and just like last night, Cam felt his soul leave his body.

He tried and failed, tried and failed to speak. Seconds or years passed.

“Would you have?” Cameron managed, finally.

“I hate you so fucking much,” Divya reiterated, but there was a soft edge underneath it. They were finally getting somewhere. “Look, I never really put that much thought into it, and if you’d asked me a while ago I would’ve said I’m straight but open-minded, but,” he gestured at Cam with one hand, irritably. “Look at you, you know? If you’d asked … ”

He trailed off, and the words hung there between them like a cloud of breath on a winter night.

“Div,” Cam whined, and Divya looked. Interested.

“If you’d asked, I wouldn’t have promised I was ready for anything long term, but I wouldn’t have said no, okay? If you’d just talked to me like a normal fucking person.”

“Divya, you have to know, please understand how sorry I am,” Cameron said, his regret a physical ache in his throat, stilting his words. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you and I wasn’t trying to ruin everything.”

He wasn’t saying it because he thought it would recover anything. He knew how feeble it sounded after how monumentally, thoughtlessly cruel his behavior had been. It was just that it was true, and he needed Divya to know.

“I hate that you looking at me with puppy eyes is working,” Divya muttered darkly.

Cam hadn’t expected anything from Divya, the least of all forgiveness, but that sounded like a challenge. And Cameron loved a challenge.

“If I’d have known that, I would’ve started doing it a lot sooner,” Cam said, and really, really looked at him. Divya had said he hated that people’s eyes skated right over him, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with being looked at head-on, either. 

He ducked his chin, looked away.

“Come here,” Cam said softly, gambling his odds.

Divya came forward.

Cam took his hands, let Divya decide what to do next.

Divya leaned forward, whispered “I’m still so fucking mad at you,” and kissed him.

Cam’s heart stopped.

The world stopped spinning.

He felt the kiss in his bone marrow, in the very depths of what was left of his soul. He felt like he was drowning, like all he could do was cling to Divya while the downpour of his emotions overwhelmed him.

“Jesus, okay, you weren’t kidding,” Divya said as Cam gasped for breath once he’d pulled away. He looked pleased, despite himself.

“Okay,” Divya announced, backing up slightly. He rubbed his hands together like they were about to embark on a project. It was a nervous tic, Cameron knew, and he loved it. Loved Divya. “I need at least two weeks to be just fucking pissed at you, okay? Because you have fucked up beyond belief.”

“Of course,” Cameron promised. “You can have anything from me, of course you can have that. That’s more than reasonable. And you have to know that however angry you are, Ty will probably outlast you by a week.”

“Please,” Divya rolled his eyes. “He’s your twin, he always takes your side.”

“You’re his best friend, and I messed with you. The only reason he hasn’t called a hit on me yet is because he needs me at Eastern Conference Finals. We care about you, Div,” Cameron reassured him, and Divya shook his head but couldn’t hide that he was smiling.

“Whatever, you have a funny way of showing it,” he said, slapping the flat of his hand against Cam’s chest again lightly.

“Let me make it up to you,” Cameron offered. He didn’t lean forward to kiss him then, but when Divya looked him in the eye it was impossible not to start to.

They kissed, and it was like balance returning. Like everything could be new again.

“Fine,” Divya challenged, “make it up to me.”

Fortunately for him, Cameron loved to give people what they wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to phonecallfromgod for getting me into The Social Network fandom last March and basically speaking everything I've written since then into existence, and thank you to my girlfriend for always letting me run ideas and practice dialogue and in every way helping me with the nitty gritty of getting words on the page. much love to you both <333


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